Oral Rehabilitation

ProDental is uniquely suited for treating complex dental cases due to Dr. Provenzale’s advanced training and experience. This allows us to provide individualized and truly comprehensive care. A typical dental patient presents with only one or two problem areas which can be easily be remedied individually. However, patients often present to us exhibiting a complex combination of oral problems, which, if addressed as single unrelated entities, may compromise the final treatment outcome.

Comprehensive Oral Rehabilitation refers to dental treatment involving a complex set of circumstances. This involves treating an array of oral problems not only as individual issues, but just as importantly, how they interrelate to one another. And how they relate to the patient, as a whole. To state it simply, the goal of oral rehabilitation is to restore a person's entire mouth to a state of health, function, and beauty.

One example of this would be a patient who has lost several teeth which were never replaced, resulting in tooth shifting and overclosure of the bite (i.e. extremely deep overbite.) If the teeth which are lost are simply replaced without treating the overclosure, other problems can manifest themselves later, such as wrinkles and folds developing at the corners of the mouth. When skin overlaps in this manner, inflammation and soreness develops due to bacterial infections in the skin at these sites. This condition is called angular chelitis.

When evaluating a patient who is a candidate for comprehensive oral rehabilitation, our first step is to perform a thorough clinical examination, take a set of full-mouth x-rays, often a CT scan and photos, and to take impressions of the teeth for making plaster study models. With the data gathered, the bite is evaluated, along with the health of the gums plus the health of each tooth individually. Using this information a treatment plan will be formulated to best fit the patient's needs. Often, we are able to formulate different treatment approaches aimed at achieving the same goal. We then thoroughly explain the treatment and its rationale, so that patients can make educated choices regarding their own treatment.

In providing treatment, Dr. Provenzale, Jr. is highly proficient in most of the various disciplines of Dentistry, therefore it is usually unnecessary for a patient to see a specialist. Since our goal is to achieve the optimum result in treatment, from time to time, however, we will refer a patient to a specialist if the nature of a problem is unusual. But we have found that most patients appreciate not having to be sent around to different offices when possible.